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Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Palm Beach <br /> Samaritan Center for homeless families <br /> B. PROGRAM NEED STATEMENT (Entire Section B not to exceed onepage) <br /> 1. a) What is the unacceptable condition requiring change? b) Who has the need? <br /> c) Where do they live? d) Provide local, state, or national trend data, with reference <br /> source, that corroborates that this is an area of need. <br /> a) The unacceptable condition requiring change is that of homelessness, a lack of higher <br /> education, vocational skills training and parenting skills. In addition, there are typically <br /> problems of substance abuse, physical and emotional abuse, financial problems, legal <br /> issues, transportation difficulties, mental health issues, and a general lack of adaptive life <br /> problem solving skills. <br /> b) The need is realized by families that are homeless or living in unacceptable living <br /> conditions. Families must consist of at least one adult age 18+ with at least one child age <br /> 0- 17 or a pregnant female 18 years or older. <br /> c) They must be residents of Indian River County. Most are in the process of being <br /> evicted. Some have already been evicted and are living in cars, tents or on someone' s <br /> porch for a limited time. In some cases the court mandates that a parent come into our <br /> program in order to be reunified with their child/children. <br /> Data: The National Mental Health Association reports some facts about families and children <br /> who are homeless: 1/Families are now the fastest growing segment of the homeless population <br /> and account for almost 40 percent of the nation's homelessness. On any given night, 1 . 2 million <br /> children are homeless; 2/Most children become homeless because their mothers and fathers are <br /> unable to find affordable housing. Traumatic events such as unemployment, illness, accidents, <br /> or violence and abuse further limit their ability to secure decent housing; 3/The average homeless <br /> family is composed of a young, single mother and two children under the age of six; 4/ While <br /> one in five school aged children have a major mental disorder, children between the ages of six <br /> and 17 years old who are homeless struggle with higher rates of mental health problems; a) <br /> Almost half of children who are homeless have anxiety, depression or withdrawal; b) And more <br /> than one in three children who are homeless manifest delinquent and aggressive behavior; 5/ <br /> Homeless children are hungry more than twice as often as other children, and 2/3 worry that they <br /> won't have enough to eat; 6/ Homeless children are more often in fair or poor health, are four <br /> times likely to have asthma, and are four times more likely to have a low birth weight and need <br /> special care right after birth compared to children who are not homeless. <br /> 2. a) Identify similar programs that are currently serving the needs of your targeted <br /> population; b) Explain how these existing programs are under-serving the targeted <br /> population of your program. <br /> a) The only local program similar to ours is the Homeless Family Center. They served 33 <br /> families consisting of 73 children during the last year. In addition, they turned 30 <br /> families away. <br /> b) Underserving the targeted population is shown by the number of people turned away <br /> by HAC & Samaritan Center. Our records indicated that 120 families applied for <br /> residency at S .C. during the last calendar year. This consists of 141 adults, 206 children <br /> and 21 unborn children. Of these, one family was not an I.R.C. resident; therefore, not <br /> eligible for our program. <br /> 5 <br />